weird sewing tips

[yhlee]

What weird but fun/quirky/intriguing sewing tips have you seen in the wild?

I'll start:

My mom always taught me to "grease" a needle by stroking it against your HAIR, which IIRC she learned from her mom; my late grandparents were originally textile merchants. Reactions to this when I recount it to people range from "huh, that makes sense" to "HORRORS, hair oils all over my thread/fabric!!!"

Comments

[nou]

The friend who got me into clothes-making was horrified by me licking the end of a piece of thread to get the fibres to stick back together, and told me the right way to do it is to rub your thumb and finger over your face to get some skin oils to do it with instead.

(Conversely, when my nephew saw me licking a thread when he was aged 5 or so, he was absolutely desperate to be allowed to do the same thing.)

[yhlee]

I do the saliva thing too, and in fact was explicitly taught that by my mom!

[fred_mouse]

I do the saliva thing, with a bonus of dragging the end between my teeth to 'flatten' the end.

[fred_mouse]

The most useful random sewing tip I can think of is to put the pins in perpendicular to the line of sewing, not parallel. Doesn't do as well when the fabric needs to be kept under control (ie. pin basting), but is much less likely to cause me to break a needle by sewing on to the pin.

I don't remember where I got that one from, but was very very pleased about learning it.

[nou]

This reminds me to mention glue-basting! I can’t remember where I first heard about it, but I started taking it seriously when I saw David Page Coffin recommending it (his books are very good reading for anyone who wants to make tailored shirts). Basically you just use glue from a glue stick (e.g. Pritt stick) to hold bits of fabric together instead of pins or clips.

I find it particularly useful for holding small bits of fabric in place, e.g. holding down the seam allowance at the end of an already-sewn seam when I’m about to sew a new seam perpendicular to it. The glue just washes out later on when you wash the garment, and of course it’s much safer to sew over it than it is to sew over a pin.